Steph Baierl
This is something that my family just recently finally had our first official conversation, and I was able to kind of pull from topics from other podcast episodes and that really helped. So, I really just kind of want more tools in my toolbox, but I know it can help other people as well. So you talked about the fact that you and your wife did not plan – let's start there, why not? Richard Wexler Oh boy, good question. You know, I talked about the fact that I think we were the quote UN quote normal couple, both working trying to make a living, and raising two small kids. As I've talked about, they were 11 and 7. They had a lot of activities outside of school and homework, so lots of driving – but can I give you an honest answer of why we didn't plan? Probably not. I think that for whatever reason, and I've talked about this, I don't think I'm stupid, nor do I think my wife is stupid, and we had four parents in their 80s, so I guess somewhere in the deep recesses of our mind we thought they were OK. We'd go visit them, they'd visit us. Everything seemed fine- they were still driving, blah, blah, blah. Then all of a sudden, we start getting the phone calls that I've talked about before. Was it too much trouble to plan? You know, backing up and thinking about it, we probably didn't even really understand that we needed to plan. Like a lot of couples, you kind of wait until it happens and you just kind of make a left turn or a right turn or go straight and deal with it. And I don't think we even thought about what “deal with it” meant. That's just what you do. Again, being really naïve, and this is almost 20 years ago, the summer of 05, when this all started, I don't think we were really thinking about the fact that it was going to get hard. And it's going affect our live and it's going to affect our two children's life. So I'm not probably giving you the best answer of why we didn't plan, but we didn't and we paid for it. Does that kind of answer your question, ma'am? Steph Baierl Absolutely. And I think that brings up a good point of "we don't know what we don't know." You know, as we go through school, at different grades, you learn different things, go through the curriculum. And probably across the United States, you probably have similar studies or milestones of what you learn. But after the graduation, we don't learn how to age. We don't learn how to care for a loved one as they age. So it's almost, like an education piece, which I love that this is your whole gig, what you're trying to do is to educate all of out there on how to hopefully thrive while we age. So with that, on every episode again, it surrounds planning - Why is it so important? Richard Wexler Wow. Well, first of all, thank you. And I know you're aware we're putting this foundation together, that we're trying to kick off next year, APlan2Age. That's going to revolve around two things: All the education and then all the resources and where you find them. But you're 100% correct. I mean, there's no class that I'm aware of, whether you're in grade school, middle school, high school, college, that really teaches this. When I started doing this and realized I couldn't spell the word C-A-R-E 16-17 years ago and started going out and educating people, I was like that guy just trying to get people A. to pay attention and B. to learn something about why it is important. You know what happens, not in every family, but in a lot of families, the adult children make assumptions about their older loved ones and what they what want and need. And I said this a lot, "assumption" is a bad word, but that's what adult children do. And then in reverse, older loved ones make assumptions about their adult children and their ability and time to assist them. I've heard so many times where an older mom, we will call her "Betty", says "Ohh no problem. When something happens, my daughter and her husband, they'll be there to take care of me." And I've had those conversations with women named Betty, (I'm making up the name Betty, but women like that in that age group) and did you really, have you talked to your kids? Do they know that? You're just assuming that they're going to be there to take care of you when something happens. And I've had countless conversations with adult children who look at me and say something similar about "Why? I know what they want." And they're going to want this and so on- and really, I mean, have you really talked to your mom and dad, or your grandparents, close uncle, a close aunt, someone else that you've been close to since you were little and all of a sudden they need help. That's part of why it's so important. Does that help? Steph Baierl Yes, I think that that is great. And it really hits the nail on the head of why it is so important to have those conversations- preferably before you're in that crisis mode of backtracking and figuring out how did we get here. So with that in mind, are there any pointers or anything that you can give our listeners to help understand how to begin this conversation? Richard Wexler Wow, that's a great question. I've been asked that a lot when I've been out speaking and I'll look at the adult children in the audience, and say that the last thing you want to do is call up Mom, call up Dad, call up Grandpa- whoever it may be, and say, "Guess what? We gotta talk." What type of response do you think you're going to get? It's probably not going be positive...So what I've found over the years, and talking with other people in the elder care field, if a son, a daughter, a daughter-in-law, son-in-law, goes to mom, dad, whomever it may be- and says something like, "Mom, Mary and I could use some help", or "Mary and I could use some advice." What I've found, and what other people in the field have found, is that most of the time Mom, Dad, whomever it may be, is going to say "Sure, Johnny. What do you need? How can we help you?" I talked a few minutes ago about these assumptions, and I've even heard that adult children will think, well, my sister Jane lives right down the street from where Mom and Dad live, we've moved five states away, so if something happens, Jane can take care of them. But that doesn't really work. So let's change this a little bit... Let's say this is the older loved one, the mom and dad, or the grandparents. It's equally as important for them to have, what I call "a family conversation", with their adult children, or at least an adult child. And simply, if they don't live close, picking up the phone and saying something like, "hey, Johnny, can Dad and I have a conversation with you? We we have something on our mind and would would love to talk to you." Most of the time that adult child is not going to say "no". They're going to say "sure, when? When are you talking about? What what works?". Then you can come up with a date and time. It's a gentle entree into this conversation. Steph Baierl That is great advice. Speaking for my family, and I'm sure we're like a lot of others, not everyone comes from the same background or maybe not as proactive or willing to have this conversation. So if there's family members that you feel maybe should be involved in it, but object to being in that kind of intro conversation, do you have any advice for what to do in those types of situations? Richard Wexler Sure. Well, obviously, if there's one child that's different, if there's multiple children, that's different as well. One of the first things you're going to want to do before you approach Mom, dad, grandparents, etc., is to have a conversation with your siblings. You're looking for a couple of things: Who has the closest relationship with Mom/Dad? Who may be the alpha dog in the family? It doesn't always have to be the alpha dog that's having this conversation, a lot of times it could be the middle child, or it could be the youngest child. The family knows who most likely who has the closest relationship with Mom/ Dad, et cetera. The last thing you want to do is pick up the phone, call them, and have three or four brothers and sisters on the phone. They're gonna feel beaten up. I mean "You guys are picking on me", so hopefully to avoid this, maybe it starts with just one family member. Let me back up, not all family members are good at this, not all family members are fine having this type of conversation. I'm talking about the adult children, for some children, it's easier and for other children, it's more difficult. Chances are if the one that finds this difficult is the one trying to have this conversation with Mom/Dad, it's probably not going to go well. So you need to talk to your siblings. If there's multiple, you need to come to a decision. Who should have this conversation? Assuming, there's that bad word, but assuming everything goes well, at some point down the road, other adult children can get involved as well. Have that initial conversation with brothers and sisters. Does that help? Steph Baierl Yes, thank you for that. My loved one that we're caring for right now is my dad, and fortunately, but unfortunately, we went through a similar situation with his dad having early onset Alzheimer's. My dad comes from a large family and has six siblings. I have one. So for seeing how they interacted towards more end of life and as things progressed more between his siblings, I think my sister have been able to kind of see how those relationships really changed between each other, between the siblings and the dad, and I'm very fortunate that we have kind of become a united front in this situation. But I could just imagine that having more siblings involved, you have different relationships with your parents, so it's probably easier for us. So once you start having that conversation with your siblings and figuring out who wants to start the conversation with Mom and Dad. What is the first subject that you would recommend somebody to talk about? Richard Wexler What do you really want to do once you've started this family conversation, once you've reached out to Mom, Dad? As the adult children reaching out, one of the first things you want to find out where do they want to live? There's a 99.9% chance they're going to say, well, right here in our home, this same home where we raised you. OK, now you get that. Now you understand that, I mean, you're not communicating this to mom and dad. That could be difficult if there's a need for care and they're really demanding they stay at home, that can be difficult. That's going to bring up other subjects. And the second piece of that same first conversation, "you know, Mom, dad, God forbid, if if something were to happen and you needed to care. What would you want? I mean, who? Who would you want to care for you." And that's where you may hear, "Well, you, Johnny or your sister Jane." So you're taking all this in, you're not really replying right now, but now you know they want to stay at home and the expectation is you and your wife, Jane and her husband are going to be the ones to care for them. Those are really the 1st two subjects you want to start discussing. Steph Baierl So with those two pieces in mind, and this is kind of where we're at thinking for my dad right now, so this is very helpful for me to have somebody to kind of brainstorm with that knows more of the "ins and outs" than what I would know...What other subjects might be needed from point A of the plan is to live at home, but maybe year from now, they need care, what other subjects may be tied into that, that we should consider now. Richard Wexler And so that kind of walks into what really is going to be the next subject. "OK. Mom, Dad, we get you want to live at home and your expectations are that we, or my sister Jane, can take care of you. But we live three states away and Jane lives about 400 miles away in a different part of the state. We would love to be able to take care of you, but that's probably going to be challenging. You know, Jane and her husband work, Mary and I work, we have our kids, so that's going to be tough. So let's kind of look at this realistically... If you guys really want to stay at home, we're probably gonna have to bring someone in. And my understanding is that it is pretty expensive, so you know I've never asked you guys what you have saved up, and what you possibly could afford if we got into a care situation, and God forbid it was both of you, but my understanding it's not cheap. It's expensive... And then a lot of it depends on how many hours in a day you're looking for someone to come in and if something were to happen and you needed someone caring for you guys around the clock, then there's some other options. I mean, if realistically Jane and and I can't do this, we'd love to, but that's going to be pretty difficult and I know you don't want to hear this, but then we probably have to talk about maybe you guys moving to a place like an assisted living, where there are people there. There's care there and that isn't cheap either, and I know you don't want to hear this, but we're talking realistic scenarios. The way that can get paid for, and I know this is not gonna come across great, may be selling the family home. I hope that helps, Steph. You want to start walking into "what is care", and look at what it is care cost? And as you know and I know, it's not cheap. Steph Baierl I like the way that you have the adult children, not necessarily take charge, but where, in these situations, the goal would be that they would be the ones that would kind of prompt this conversation. And I feel, at least for my parents and my grandparents generation, there's a lot of pride and independence, so feeling like you might be a burden to your children might stop them from starting that conversation. So having ways to navigate this, like saying "Mom, Dad, I need help." I love that quick, almost tagline of just keeping that in my mind when starting conversations like this so it's not putting a defense up. But I feel that, yes, starting the conversation and having these little baby steps to have this plan started is going to help so much in the long run. Is there anything else that you can think of that you wanted to bring up today? Richard Wexler Sure. I mean when you're so depending upon how this conversation is going, it may have ended after that first part about where they want to live and them needing care and so on and so forth. And this may then break into multiple conversations with multiple phone calls. At some point, you're going to need to understand if your older loved ones have done an estate plan. Do they have a will? Do they have a trust, which is necessary in almost all the states? If they don't, that is something that needs to be taken care of. Whether they meet with someone, if it isn't that complex, there are sites where where an estate plan can be put together online, but that's extremely important. I'm not gonna get into all the legal issues, but you want to avoid a thing called "probate". You want to be able to control the stuff that you've built and acquired in your lifetime. So a conversation about whether they have an estate plan, and if they don't, how are they going to get one? The next piece of that is the financial piece. So maybe at this point I've told the parents what care in the home's going to cost. You know, we're talking close to $40.00 an hour. A community assisted living, we're talking an average of $5,000 a month around the country. So once we've crossed that bridge, and we had hoped this took place many, many, many years before, but meeting with the financial planner or financial advisor. Maybe Mom and Dad do have a decent amount of money- But how is it arranged? Can they get their hands on that money? That's where meeting with an advisor or a planner would be so important. What's also important from this conversation is that Johnny the son and Jane the daughter, who are hopefully either participating and or hearing about this conversation, realize that at some point you guys, or your spouse, is probably going to need care. And if that's many years down the line, and I'm talking 40 an hour now and I'm talking $5,000 a month at an assisted living, what's it going to cost then? So we're kind of utilizing that conversation to hopefully wake up Johnny and Jane. They're both working. They're spouses are working. They're making money. And they need to be sitting down with the financial planner or financial advisor and not just talking about this R word called "R-E-T-R-E-M-E-N-T", but talking about this little word called "C-A-R-E". Steph Baierl Thank you and I know we're coming close to running out of time here, but I just wanted to ask one more quick question, and correct me if I'm wrong, but your goal with APlan2Age, the website or the app that you're hoping to launch next year, is that going to almost have a "road map" with these, I'll call them "pit stops", and maybe not every pit stop, or every piece of this puzzle, will fit each family's unique situation, but being able to think about the unknown, and again, we don't know what we don't know- So there might be keywords or things that that will stick with us now that we don't have to dive in and do all the research until it is closer to being needed, is that kind of your plan for that? Richard Wexler Yes, ma'am. So, we want the younger folks hopefully coming to this for the reasons I just talked about. Maybe they've already dealt with the care for Mom or Dad or grandparents and they're realizing how difficult and how expensive it. So now they want to start planning. They need to understand what they and their 40s should be doing. They want to understand and start looking through if we ever need care, what are the resources that are out there? So yes, different people at different points in their life, where with the older mom and dad, the older grandparents, maybe planning is going to be tough right now, even though we're gonna educate them about that, and there still may be some things they can plan, like the estate plan, but then showing them, "OK, you live here? What? How can we help you with resources in your area?" So yes, we're trying to help people at any stage in their life really understand what they should be doing from a planning perspective, but also what are the resources that are out there. Steph Baierl Thank you, Richard again for letting me come on and just ask all of these questions. I feel it's so important to, I don't want to say keep, you know, beating a dead horse, but it is so important to rephrase these questions and one day it's going to click with a different person. So thank you again for letting me come on today. Richard Wexler Thank you, Steph. I really appreciate it. And if you want folks like we always talk about, if you want to reach out to me, you have a question. You have a comment you'd like to be a guest on the podcast. That e-mail once again, [email protected] reach out. We'll always get back to you. And as I've said many times, this stuff happens. Even if it's one older loved one, it's never going to be easy, but I truly believe, and I've seen it, if there is a plan, it will be easier. So with that, I want to thank Steph again, and until we meet again, have yourself an awesome day.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorRichard Wexler Archives
September 2024
Categories |
RSS Feed
